Tuesday, May 27, 2014

QUICK REVIEWS: The Fighter, Looper, Adaptation, Lonesome Dove



Lazy holiday weekend. Caught some movies on DVD. I'll be brief...and probably sarcastic.

The Fighter  (2010)  Starring Marky-Mark and Christian Bale

Well, the acting was very good. I'm not quite sure how this story merited making a movie, though. A very obnoxious, dysfunctional family results in one son being a drug-addled boxer and the other son being a non-drug-addled boxer. Did I mention the acting was really good? It wasn't a bad movie; it just wasn't as great as I was expecting it to be.

Looper  (2012)  Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis

Interesting premise. JGL trying to act like Bruce Willis was briefly entertaining. The weird whatever-the-hell thing they did to JGL's face (was that CGI?) to make him more BruceWillisy was also freaky enough to be entertaining. Unfortunately, this was a bad script coupled with some really bad direction. I got so bored that I went to bed, which is actually unusual for me. I don't often bail on a movie.

Adaptation (2002)  Starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep

I am not a big fan of Cage, but he was pretty impressive in this movie. He plays an oddball screenwriter trying (and failing) to adapt a book about an orchid hunter/thief. He also plays the screenwriter's equally oddball, but less neurotic, brother. Additionally, Chris Cooper won an Academy Award for supporting actor, and he was also great. This is one of those quirky movies that is, at various points, anxiety provoking, funny, not funny, poignant, touching, and disturbing. Unlike Looper, it was not at all boring. It was pretty strange, but really, really well directed and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Lonesome Dove (1989)  Starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones

I like Westerns. That's the caveat. And, really, who better to play a couple of craggy old, leather-skinned, former Texas rangers than Duvall and Jones? No one. 

This is a tv mini-series, so it's several hours long, but quite enjoyable. Life was tough in the Old West. I wouldn't last ten seconds. Sometimes, I don't love the writing for the female characters, but that's okay. There was quite a cast to enjoy---Chris Cooper (twice in one blog!), for example. Ricky Schroder, Steve Buscemi and Danny Glover were young. Diane Lane and Anjelica Houston were young and beautiful.  

Lot's of people die, but it is a western, so that shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. You'll just have to watch it to see who survives.



No comments:

Post a Comment